Step onto almost any ranch in the West nowadays and you’re likely to hear someone cussin’ the meatpackers. The next thing you might hear is a phone call from that same rancher to his or her congressman asking support for a ban on packer ownership of cattle. Packers are the people at the end of […]
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Mexican workers in our towns want to legitimize their presence
The hour was early, the high desert air was fall-frosty, and the coffee was, well, truly horrible. I’d arrived for my volunteer shift at a Catholic church in the western Colorado town of Delta, and I had a very bad feeling. Five hundred people were already waiting on the sidewalk outside, sipping the acrid coffee, […]
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Gardening old-style with my great-uncle Alfred in Seattle
The other day my great-uncle Alfred gave me a handful of the year’s green beans, dried and ready for planting next summer. “Give them something high up to grow on,” he told me. “They’ll grow seven feet tall.” Alfred knows. He’s planted this variety in his garden for seven years now, every year saving a […]
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Wild times in the human weed patch
I never knew how wild my corner of the West was until my daughter started playing volleyball. It had nothing to do with volleyball or the way it transforms giggling adolescent girls into snarling competitive animals. It had to do with early morning practices. “Builds character,” my daughter’s coach said. The kids’ or the parents’, […]
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Walking in Portland can be dangerous to your health
Last week another vehicle almost nailed me flat as a coffin. I was alone in a crosswalk in the center of Oregon’s most worldly city, Portland. I had been walking uphill and had made it six blocks west of the Willamette River. I get my exercise some days by hiking around downtown and combining errands. […]
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One big thing I’ve come to know about hunting
After he shot off his big toe, my dad lost all interest in guns. He lived to fish, but he never took me hunting. When I came of age I bought an army surplus British .303 rifle and went forth into the Colorado hills above Loveland to hunt. I had no idea how, really. I […]
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Sea coasts rough sailing for breeding birds
Thirty thousand birds called common murres stand in penguin-like suits atop a single sea rock, crammed as tightly together as commuters on a bus. All drone tones as low and somber as monks: arg-arg-arg-arg-arg-arg-arg-arg. With a spotting scope, I watch the murres raise their chocolate heads, puff out their white breasts and point their bills […]
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On the road in the New West of Wyoming
The hitchhiker looked a little wild-eyed, or maybe shocked, when I stopped on the highway shoulder. “Where are you going?” I shouted. “Cody, Wyoming,” he said, staring through thick glasses at the canoe on my roof rack. He had no pack, no bag, nothing that identified him as either a local or an ordinary traveler. […]
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For 60 years, J. David Love explored the West’s geology
When I was a wet-behind-the-ears field ecologist, my then-husband and I were posted to a Forest Service work center 50 miles southwest of Cody, Wyoming, where the road ends in the remote Absaroka Range. Our only human neighbors were the absentee owners of a nearby ranch, and for a few weeks, a raucous bunch of […]
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There’s nothing like watching a grizzly bear in the wild
We heard them long before we saw them. My husband and I were watching a grizzly feeding on the slope across the drainage from us when weird howls drifted through the valley. The bear heard the strange sounds, too, and eased into the brush at the base of a berry patch. The noises came again, […]
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In New Mexico, Sid Goodloe sets an example for the federal government
Sid Goodloe grows grass. Lots of it. His ranch near the village of Capitan is a green oasis in a southern New Mexico desert seared by drought. It’s not that his land isn’t hurting. Ponds and creeks are drying, and hip-high grasses now reach only to the knee. Still, his ranch has some water and […]
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We care for our public lands more than we know
Hear the debate rage. As someone once said, academics get so angry at each other because the stakes are so small. “The author does not seem to understand, and thus misrepresents, many of the concepts he wants scrutinized,” asserts one scientist. “I focus on what appears to be the source of his snappishness,” says another. […]
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Ranchers are down, but don’t count us out
How are ranchers and farmers faring through this terrible drought? Will we quit farming and ranching voluntarily? Not on your life. For some, unfortunately, it will be their last year. Reading the advertisements for livestock auctions tells the story: “Selling due to the drought.” Ranchers almost never sell herds of mother cows, just a few […]
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Freedom of the press is eroding before our eyes
On Sept. 1, the Idaho Statesman ran a fascinating exposé of local CEO salaries. The amounts of money, stock options and the all-encompassing “bonuses” lavished on these public company executives were staggering and obscene. Not to mention, according to Statesman reporter Julie Howard, “generous severance, salary, pension and retirement packages.” Many of the companies the […]
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What we don’t know about wildfire can hurt us
Fires still rage across the West. Grim-faced federal officials report over 6 million acres burned, twice the 10-year average. President Bush declared most of Colorado a disaster after Gov. Bill Owens pronounced the burned area in his state a “nuclear winter.” This news hits outdoor-loving Americans in the gut as we assume all natural resources […]
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Democrats need to pick up their guns
For the past 25 years or so, Democrats have been the party of protection for public lands, while Republicans have generally supported more mining, drilling, logging and grazing. It hasn’t always been this way. The protection of public lands was a mainstay of Republican policy for generations. Democrats, acting on behalf of their constituencies – […]
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It’s true: You can change the world
You hear this argument from drillers, miners and loggers nowadays: For every tree we don’t cut here, a forest falls in Siberia. For every proposed regulated mine we don’t dig in the West, a river system is poisoned in China. For every oil or gas well we don’t permit here, a rainforest in Africa is […]
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Guess what’s the most dangerous government job
Think of all the dangerous beats assigned to federal law enforcement officers: tracking illegal arms sales, intercepting drug smugglers, guarding the nation’s borders against foreign terrorists, apprehending kidnappers and fugitives, protecting the lives of potential assassination targets. Now, guess which branch of federal law enforcement is the most dangerous, in terms of the rate at […]
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Fee demo on our public lands is a rip-off
If there’s a basic flaw in the government’s Recreation Fee Demonstration Program, or “fee demo,” it’s that it represents a form of regressive taxes, or double taxation. We, the people, already pay taxes for the management of public lands, and now, under fee demo, we are required to pay again for their use. That strikes […]
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You pay your money, you get your recreation
Earlier this month, I told staffers of a U.S. Senate committee about my annual ritual where a woman in a Park Service uniform passes me a map of Yellowstone, brochures on bison safety and my National Parks Pass. I turn over $50 to her, and for the next year I have access to everything from […]